


Silver Tongue

by MissBMarie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: A little spicy, M/M, Sort Of, a small character study, really short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissBMarie/pseuds/MissBMarie
Summary: Kallus is an uptight, impertinent, mouthy SOB with a chip on his shoulder. But Zeb is into it.Very short and a little spicy.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus & Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios
Comments: 20
Kudos: 124





	Silver Tongue

It’s hard to ignore Kallus’s eloquence. How careful he is with his words. He strings them together like well braided yarn, knots and bows perfectly tied in all the right places. 

Simple conversation is poetry out of his mouth. Sometimes smooth like honey over his lips. Sometimes sharp like a snap of the teeth. But always structured, smart, clever. Even in his most violent moments, even when he is filled with hot, loud rage, his intellect is unparalleled. 

Zeb wants to find it haughty. Wants to call him snobbish and arrogant. But when he is the target of that silver tongue, he knows he can’t compete. Knows he’s outmatched. He is not witty nor nimble enough to keep up. It makes him quake with anger, frustration and...

_ Want. _

The soft twist of Kallus’s mouth, the keen of his brow. They are often a preamble for a killing strike. His tongue a whip when it needs to be, a warm blanket when it does not. His jaw -  _ oh his jaw _ \- when he clenches his teeth, the bones that sharpen at the corners of his face, a direct line to the muscle that pulls along his throat. 

Everyone around them has opinions on the man’s disposition. They say he’s too cold. Too snide. Too  _ Imperial _ . His eyes are too calculating. They glean with contempt. Murderous intent. 

He has Resting Bitch Face. 

Sometimes during conversation he’s so aloof that you’d think he wasn’t even listening, as though everything being said isn’t worth his attention or time. Then without warning his eyes will shift, zeroing in on a particular statement. Or sometimes he won’t say anything at all, but the look he gives will make you second guess your whole stance. 

When he is lost in thought, he’ll prop an elbow in front of him and press the flat of his thumb to his mouth, pushing the top lip as far up as it will go before dragging it back down, his bottom lip snapping with a  _ pop _ .

Zeb will watch him do it across a crowded table, and in that moment he is tempted to brazenly traverse the distance between them and drag a clawed finger across that lip himself. He wants to make it  _ pop  _ and taste the loose skin under his own tongue.

Kallus would have a fucking heart attack. 

His brows would knit together, making hard lines between them. His nose would scrunch and his mouth would tighten. Then his tongue would lay down a verbal reckoning. People call Zeb crazy. Ask how he can entertain a man with Kallus’s temperament. How someone so off-putting, so blunt, so rigid could appeal to him.

Zeb  _ has _ tasted that lip though. Has slid fingers past those impudent lips. Has smoothed the lines on Kallus’s forehead, only to create new ones at the corners of his eyes when he screws them shut and his mouth falls slack. Zeb has traced his teeth along the muscle at his throat, feeling Kallus shake and shiver with anticipation. He’s watched sharp eyes fall lidded, filling with unabashed wanton. 

And eventually Zeb will find a disheveled mess of a man in front of him. Under him, pressed to walls and desks and mattresses. Perched on his hips, all his weight rocking against Zeb’s chest. His hands will greedily take purchase wherever they can. Kallus will gather up flesh and fur painfully between his fingers before smoothing it out, over and over. He’ll pay special attention to Zeb’s ears, running blunt human nails against the tender flesh, all the while Zeb is dragging clawed hands over Kallus’s hips. He’ll hiss and whine as they leave bright red marks, then preen when Zeb soothes the skin with flat palms. 

And in those moments all of Kallus’s eloquence, all of his carefully crafted grandiosity, all that fucking bravado is nothing but mindless babble. Words fail him. He’s all mouth and tongue and teeth, sounds incoherent more often than not. In fact the only intelligible word he can seem to muster is:  _ Garazeb _ . 

And  _ oh  _ the millions of ways he’s strewn those syllables together. Even with only one word in his vocabulary, he still finds new inflections. Breathy and heedy, loud and desperate, demanding and rushed. And often hesitant. Quiet. Soft. 

Zeb never tires of it.

Eventually Kallus’s stoney exterior begins to crack. Those rigid muscles of his loosen and his broad shoulders drop their tension. His mouth stops twisting in disdain with every small inconvenience. 

The resting bitch face doesn’t go anywhere.

But people begin to see the secretive smirks Zeb pries out of him, most of which Kallus fails to hide beneath his palm. Those perceived faults soften and become quirks, some even endearing ones. He rarely jokes, but dabbles in jovial sarcasm. 

And sometimes when he thinks no one will be the wiser, he’ll lean in close and find a new way to whisper:  _ Garazeb _ . 

Zeb never tires of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I've fallen into the deep end of the Kalluzeb pool, so if you're into it, stick around. I'll be rolling more out sooooon. And of course kudos and comments appreciated.


End file.
